Concerned that my 7 year old's homework intrudes on our privacy!

LegacyUser

I really appreciate other parents and teachers views on the following issue.

As part of my child's SESE homework, he has to provide the following information:

Name and Address (I've no issue with that)

Names of everyone living in our home, their occupation and date of birth. (Now, I've nothing to hide but I don't feel that my partner and I should have to provide this information). We're are blessed to be working but what about the children that have unemployed parents?

My son has also been asked to provide pictures of our home, how many rooms it has, how many windows and doors, whether its detached, terraced etc. and well as pictures of rooms in the house.

He is only back at school three weeks and I'm wondering how much more info will be requested, what's next? our exams results? P60s?

Am I over reacting here?

January

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byhookorbycrook

I don't think, as a teacher, I'd be asking about parents' date of birth!!
It's all part of the curriculum, which can be found on www.ncca.ie
"identify and talk about those who live at home and recognise that homes and families can vary"

"recognise his/her role and place in the family unit and the contribution made by each member to the family"


If you don't feel comfortable with giving a particular answer, then don't. You could send a note in , too.

Insect Overlord

WexfordSallyAnne wrote: »

Am I over reacting here?

I think you are over-reacting. Questions like that have been used for SPHE, SESE, Maths and other lessons for years.

Dates of birth are great for building an understanding of time/chronology in History.

You don't have to be too specific with professions either. "My mammy/daddy works in an office/the hospital/ a supermarket" isn't an invasion of anybody's privacy.

Photographs of the rooms might be pushing it a bit, but you can supervise a few minutes of photography to make sure your child doesn't bring unflattering pictures into class!

The idea is that the child gets to understand new concepts by building on things he/she already knows well. It doesn't get much more fundamental than the family home.

Sulla Felix

Bizarre. Sounds more like a loan application.

ShamoBuc

Parents occupation - no real need for that.
Names of people in house - normally family members, shouldn't be too much of an issue there.
Pictures of rooms etc - no real need for that either - they can draw the house, number of windows, semi, terrace etc which would suffice fine.
Date of Birth - very good use can be made from these from a maths perspective in particular ( you can 'alter' them a bit to suit yourself !!)

All in all - bit of a non issue really - unless you think the teacher is casing your house!;)

Big Bag of Chips

They (school books) usually ask for a picture of something, either a photograph, or one drawn by the child. So nobody is looking for photos of your house!

My son is in second class and last week had homework about him, one of his parents and one of his grandparents.

It did include dates of birth, but surely that's more for the child to realise how long ago his dad/grandad etc was born.. I doubt any teacher with an average of 30 kids in a room is going to take too much notice of the finer details of 30 kids' parents and grandparents.

I'm sure unemployed parents have their own way of handling questions. An unemployed builder is still a builder, after all.

As someone else mentioned, if you don't like a question, don't answer it. But try to remember the homework is more for your child's benefit, than the teachers.